Boris Johnson announces four-week England lockdown

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced a second national lockdown for England as the UK passed one million Covid-19 cases.

Non-essential shops and hospitality will have to close for four weeks on Thursday, he said.

But unlike the restrictions in spring, schools, colleges and universities will be allowed to stay open.

It comes as documents suggested the UK was on course for a much higher death toll than during the first wave.

The lockdown is due to last until 2 December, the prime minister said at a Downing Street news conference.

Takeaways will be allowed to stay open as pubs, bars and restaurants close and people are being told they can only meet one person from outside their household outdoors.

Johnson, who chaired a cabinet meeting on Saturday afternoon, will make a statement to Parliament on Monday.

The UK recorded another 21,915 confirmed coronavirus cases on Saturday, bringing the total since the pandemic began to 1,011,660.

Another 326 people were reported to have died within 28 days of a positive test.

The UK is the ninth country to reach the milestone of a million cases - after the US, India, Brazil, Russia, France, Spain, Argentina and Colombia.

But the true number of infections is expected to be higher due to a lack of widespread testing at the start of the pandemic.

Prof Neil Ferguson, whose modelling was crucial to the decision to impose the first lockdown, said keeping universities and schools open meant infections would decrease more slowly this time.

He said the new restrictions could reduce cases by anywhere between 20% and 80%, adding that he hoped larger groups of people would be able to gather by Christmas "if only for a few days".

Johnson had previously resisted pressure to introduce nationwide restrictions, saying they would be "disastrous" for the UK's finances and opting instead for a three-tiered system targeting local areas in England.

Ahead of the news conference, school and university unions called for education institutions to be closed and for teaching to move online in another national lockdown.

The National Education Union said it would be "self-defeating" to ignore how schools helped to spread the virus.

And "the health and safety of the country is being put at risk" by the insistence on keeping in-person teaching on campuses, the University and College Union said.

Source: BBC